A contested theory in quantum mechanics is that of the observer effect, how the very act of surveying a particular system might change its state. So how does each Dixon Place audience alter “Quantum Joy,” Victor Morales’s cheerful and unfocused meditation on the unreliable nature of reality?

Mr. Morales, a round-faced fellow of Venezuelan origin, works as a solo artist and has also contributed video, animation and puppetry to the works of others, most recently Joseph Silovsky’s “Send for the Million Men.” He has an abiding interest in video games and the bugs and errors inherent in them. In “Quantum Joy,” which he created and performs, he uses his programming skills to build virtual worlds that ostensibly illustrate concepts in physics like uncertainty (which Mr. Morales misspells charmingly and appositely as “uncertanty”), quantum entanglement and the superposition of states.

The jerky video landscapes — a beach, a subway car, a futuristic museum with several Picasso images that repeat infinitely — don’t seem to have much to do with these concepts, not even when Mr. Morales explains them. There’s also some discussion of social inequality, but this, too, feels removed from the imagery. It’s unlikely that “Quantum Joy,” which could use a director and perhaps a co-writer, will expand anyone’s sense of reality, virtual or otherwise.

This would likely be true even if all of Mr. Morales’s gizmos and setups worked. They don’t. Probably they worked perfectly well in rehearsal. Maybe this is that observer effect.

But Mr. Morales contends with each setback in an upbeat and utterly disarming way. “That’s the problem with technology,” he explained, when one component failed. “Sometimes it doesn’t work.” He solicited suggestions about how to carry on from the audience and remained polite when these suggestions proved unhelpful. “I’ve already tried turning it on and off,” he said.